Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Democrats are overreacting to overheated rhetoric and one blogging buffoon.

By Jonah Goldberg

March 30, 2010

Apparently there's a self-proclaimed militia leader named Mike Vanderboegh who runs an obscure, low-traffic blog out of Pinson, Ala. (population 5,007). Mr. Vanderboegh recently called on his fellow "sons of liberty" to break the windows of Democrats who voted for healthcare reform.

So let's start with the obvious: Vanderboegh is an idiot, and anyone who followed his advice is an idiot too. These people are buffoons, not just because such tactics help Democrats but because such behavior is simply wrong, reprehensible and clownish.

Equally wrong, reprehensible and clownish: The reaction to Vanderboegh and his alleged ilk.

The Daily Beast's John Avlon insists that Vanderboegh's rallying cry, combined with some threats and broken windows, make "the parallels, intentional or not, to the Nazis' heinous 1938 Kristallnacht . . . hard to ignore."

Actually, it's really, really easy to ignore the parallels. During Kristallnacht, Nazi goons destroyed not just 7,000 store windows but hundreds of synagogues and thousands of homes. Tens of thousands of Jews were hauled off to concentration camps by the Nazis, who had been in total power for half a decade.

This combination of state power and murderous, genocidal intent is nowhere on display in America today, not in the Obama administration (contrary to what some overheated right-wingers claim) and certainly not among out-of-power conservatives and "tea partyers." It's amazing anyone needs to point this out, but a few libertarians throwing bricks is not the same thing as the tightening fist of the Third Reich. Indeed, it's an anti-American slander to suggest anything like it is going on here, and it cheapens the moral horror of the Holocaust.

Don't tell that to the Democrats and their media transmission belt, who largely turned a blind eye to partisan vandalism and extremist rhetoric against Republicans for eight years but now express horror at what they claim to hear from the right.

Columnist Paul Krugman, who encouraged liberals to hang Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in effigy, is concerned about right-wing "eliminationist rhetoric." The Washington Post's Courtland Milloy can't stand the incivility of the tea partyers, which is why he wants to "knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads." Frank Rich says the mantra "take our country back" is now code for a white racist backlash -- though it was an apparently fine Democratic applause line when George W. Bush was president.

So what's the evidence for this new reign of terror? Those broken windows, some nasty voice and e-mail messages (not counting those aimed at Republicans, naturally), a coffin "left" at a Missouri congressman's home, a few repugnant signs at rallies and allegations from Reps. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.)and John Lewis (D-Ga.) that they were spit on and insulted with the "N-word," respectively.

But wait. The coffin was part of a protest over the death of "our freedoms" and was toted by the protesters, not left anywhere. And videos make it clear that what Cleaver called spitting was a protester spraying too much saliva while talking, the racist pig.

As for the epithet aimed at Lewis, if it happened, it's disgusting. But going by the video, there's nothing to back it up, and Rep. Andre Carson's (D-Ind.) claim that the N-word was chanted 15 times is pure dishonesty.

Let's assume it is true. I thought liberals rejected guilt by association as McCarthyism. Or are we to believe that every opponent of Obamacare is a racist?

On March 3, Politico broke a story about a leaked PowerPoint presentation delivered at a GOP retreat in Florida. It laid out, in cartoonish terms, a fundraising strategy exploiting "fear" of President Obama's "socialist" agenda. Ranking Republicans condemned and repudiated it.

Now, Obama's political arm, Organizing for America, is fundraising based on fear, sending out e-mails insinuating that Republicans are unleashing a lynch mob to repeal Obamacare. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democrats' Congressional Campaign Committee, insists we all should be very scared.

Heaven forbid anyone suggest a coordinated strategy is at work here. That would be distracting us from the Kristallnacht unfolding before our eyes.

I've got no use for the conservative commentariat, at all, and Jonah Goldberg even less than most. He's always in a hurry to appear "normal", but"normal" people elected that festering mass hulking in the White House.

I just finished reading the piece referenced in the subject line. It is obvious you tried to be evenhanded. I applaud that. However, you are wrong.

We listen to pols from both sides of the aisle say "This isn't the way to protest. Contact your legislators by mail, email, rallies and peaceful protests. Phone them and tell them of your concerns. That is the American way".

We hear it, but it doesn't resonate. Wanna know why? Because we did all that and they didn't fulfill their part of the "American way" and heed our wishes and represent our concerns, instead of their own. Hell, I wouldn't mind somebody paying me that much money to abuse their interests while furthering mine at their expense. Ok, I would mind it, but that's because I have a moral compass. Something that many of us have known about our politicians for a very long time and something that now almost everybody has discovered is that our elected officials, by and large, do not.

What was the response to the Tea Parties, to the gatherings of others, to the phone calls, to letters,and emails? They ignored them or sent form letters saying nothing and addressing no known issue in the damn universe. They held their most flagrant "abuse the country" negotiations and votes in weekend sessions because the switchboard closes Friday evening and is not up and running again until Monday. Therefore, no constituent can reach his/her legislator while the arm-twisting, buying and selling of votes and other crimes and sins are perpetrated to mandate for all of us, but not themselves, something they knew was immensely unpopular and something they have no legitimate power under the constitution to do. The latter being the true crime perpetrated on the American people and against the nation.

After reading your column I see you are schoolified, but uneducated. You have missed something very important. In fact, you missed the whole core of the thing. Now, I will tell you what you missed.

You missed the fact that months and months of "appropriately expressed grievances" were ignored in their totality. They were ignored because the politicians did not fear or respect the American people and felt no loyalty to their duty. They paid no heed at all, but three lousy bricks sure as Hell got their attention, didn't they?

You also missed the fact that actions such as this are the only options they left open. That's right, they set the rules, now they whine that somebody else is playing by them? And you support their hypocrisy without seeing that this type of thing is one of the last possible efforts to gain their attention in time and with enough credibility that they may wish to re-examine their desire to do things that will foment an armed conflict. Because if they do not pay attention and conduct themselves with more honor than heretofore they have displayed an armed conflict is inevitable.

There are people who will not be enslaved. There are people who will not meekly accept abuse after intolerable abuse. AND THERE ARE NO MORE FREE WACOS.

You missed all that. Would you like to take another shot at it? Or are you on the wrong side of liberty on this.

Saul Alinsky would be mighty proud to know that Jonah is living up to the same rules that his side pisses on every day.

I'm real disappointed in Goldberg because he's usually right on the mark and waay funny. This time though he unloads his first and strongest venom on Mike, saving the rest of the column to gently rebuke the Deemocrats for profiting from some broken glass-rather than slamming them for breaking the country. Another useful idiot.

Mr. Goldberg has made oversights. He apparently only read the LA Times article instead of this blog. (Or perhaps he did read the blog, and is frightened by ideas outside of the statist comfort zone.) Second, he fails to grasp the basic political principal that the electorate despises those who make them think, but loves those who make them hate.

That sort of motivational technique isn't strongly represented here, because the host isn't running for office. This is the other end, where people are inspired to make argument with their "representatives". It's bottom up, as opposed to the politicians giving the people reasons to hate.

Also: Obama's a socialist, but what of it? I'm concerned with the law-breaking that happens on a daily basis on Planet DC. Anyone in this country is free to have faith in anything, even a pseudoscience as laughable and detrimentally stupid as social planning. However: adding another tick to it's 150 year failure streak, while violating the Constitution? Not cool. I will vote accordingly.

Other then the opening 4 paragraphs (totally bogus), the remainder of his "article" was close to spot on and supported much of what Mike's been saying all along. I wonder if JG has actually read any of Mike's material, and would see the irony in the parallels he's written in his own article?

My Blog List

Advice on child rearing from my son.

Everyone should grow up with simulated equipment from a heavy weapons platoon. It gives you a more well rounded education and an appreciation for the finer things in life. -- Sergeant Matthew Vanderboegh, United States Army.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.